FBI Says Las Vegas Shooter’s Motive May Take Nearly a Year to Release

It may be a long time until the public knows exactly what led to the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.

The FBI has revealed it will not release its report on Stephen Paddock’s shooting onto a crowd of Las Vegas concert goers any time soon.

During an interview, the chief of the FBI’s Las Vegas office revealed that the agency probably would not brief the public until the report is released sometime in October — a full year year after Paddock gunned down 58 people.

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“Now that’s a long time for some people, but speaking for the FBI, that’s light speed, all right?” Special Agent in Charge Aaron Rouse said, according to Fox News.

On the night of Oct. 1, Paddock opened fire from his Mandalay Bay hotel room onto a crowd of around 22,000 people attending a country music concert in Las Vegas.

Moments before shooting at the crowd outside, Paddock had fired at a security guard through the door of his hotel room. The security guard had incidentally been on the 31st floor to check on an alarm when he was shot.

Paddock ultimately killed 58 people and injured 527 others during his brief, but devastating rampage, according to Axios.

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A SWAT team finally charged into Paddock’s room and found him dead from a self-inflicted gun shot wound.

Over two months have passed since the massacre and there is still no clear motive for his actions.

“As I sit here today, I believe that we are learning as much as we possibly can about why the subject did what they did,” Rouse stated.

Other agencies investigating the event will be releasing their reports at different times. However, Rouse says the FBI’s report is “focusing a large part on the why” which is “what everybody wants to know.”

Rouse said that evidence suggests Paddock acted alone in the attack and he has not been linked to any radical organizations or ideologies.

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He added that FBI investigators have about 250,000 photos and 22,000 hours of surveillance and cellphone footage to examine — a colossal amount of data that may shed more light on what happened.

“We didn’t leave anything uncovered,” Rouse said in an interview. “And again, the casinos, with their support, let us track down a lot of information of who may have had contact with that person. And it was very helpful to us.”

The Islamic State group originally claimed responsibility for the massacre, suggesting Paddock had acted on their orders to attack Western countries, but these claims were quickly ruled out by the FBI.

Paddock’s girlfriend, Marilou Danley, informed investigators that he would lie in bed screaming, an indication that he may have been in “physical or mental anguish.”

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Over the years, Paddock made a substantial amount of money from video gambling, and investigators have suggested that his recent gambling losses may have played a role.

Several times, Paddock had gambled over $10,000 in a single day, and in some instances more than than $20,000 and $30,000 in one day, at casinos in Las Vegas, according to NBC News.